"Is there not reason to believe that many of the Laws of the Spiritual World, hitherto regarded as occupying an entirely separate province, are simply the Laws of the Natural World?"
— Henry Drummond

Using spiritual experience to explain scientific principles, New Thought pioneer Henry Drummond’s provocative essays demonstrate the direct connection between spiritual law and natural law to introduce a worldview unbound by conventional thought. Today his groundbreaking observations are as relevant as ever, and in One Law, Dr. Ruth Miller incorporates the modern laws of physics, biology, cybernetics, and ecology with Drummond’s original essays to decode the spiritual realm.

Bridge the gap between science and spirituality and forever change the way you see the world by rediscovering Drummond’s provocative theory that natural law and spiritual law are one and the same.

EXCERPT

Discovering the Naturalness of the Supernatural

"The most certain thing there is in our lives—our consciousness—is the one thing that science cannot explain. It’s easier to explain how hydrogen evolved into other elements—how those elements probably gathered together to form living systems, how those living systems evolved, how our bodies work. All of that is easier than explaining why we ever have one single thought, or experience, or feeling.”
-- Peter Russell, 20th century noetic researcher

Nooks and articles dealing with science and spirituality receive more suspicion—more derision, even—than any other body of work. Scientists are tired of people trying to reconcile two things which they think never should have been compared; spiritual philosophers are offended by the requirement to meet the standards of the scientific community, whose ideas they aren’t sure they accept anyway. Both groups have discovered that, when science is compared to spirituality or fused with it, the arguments are too often based on some fatal assumption about both approaches.

But that need not be the case. The question is really simple: Is there reason to believe that, even though we think of them as separate, the laws of the spiritual world are simply extensions of the laws of the natural world?

This suggests a second question: Can we identify any currently accepted laws of science at work in the spiritual realm?

The Exploration

I came to this inquiry quite unexpectedly. For some years I’ve had the privilege of addressing two very different audiences. On weekdays, I’ve lectured to college students on the natural sciences, and, on Sundays, to a church audience on religious subjects.

At first, it seemed necessary to keep the two sets of information entirely separate; they seemed at opposite poles of thought. And for a time I succeeded in keeping them in two separate compartments of my mind. But gradually, the wall between them began to give way. The two fountains of knowledge slowly began to overflow, and finally their waters met and mingled.

The greatest change was in the compartment holding spirituality. I began to hear myself stating spiritual laws as if they were the same as the laws of biology and physics.

Now, this was not simply a scientific coloring given to spirituality; I wasn’t simply illustrating theology with natural facts and examples. It was an entire recasting of their truth. Then, when I seriously considered what was happening, it seemed that I was actually introducing natural law into the spiritual world.

Some would say that such a thing is impossible, that the natural sciences cannot be applied to other disciplines. To them, I would reply that this has not only been allowed in other fields, but has also achieved results as rich as they were unexpected. What are the physical politics of Walter Bagehot or Marx and Engel but an extension of natural law to the political world? What is the biological sociology of Herbert Spencer or E. O. Wilson but the application of natural law to the social world? Are the splendid achievements of such thinkers mere hybrids of things that were meant to remain apart?

Nature usually solves such problems for herself: any inappropriate hybridism is made sterile—as in the case of mules and modern commercial seeds—but these developments in knowledge have been far from sterile. The application of biology to politics, economics, and sociology has revolutionized those sciences and led to the emergence of other fruitful disciplines. So if the introduction of natural law into the social realm is a genuine and permanent contribution, should its further extension to the spiritual realm be considered unacceptable? Doesn’t the principle of continuity demand its application in every direction?

An Unexpected Discovery

When I began to follow these lines of reasoning, I had no idea where they would lead me. I was having great success using parables and analogies in my teaching, and I was prepared, at least for the time, to continue on that line, regardless of the consequences.

Then, in almost every case, after stating what appeared to be the truth gathered directly from the results of scientific exploration, I was soon startled by how similar it was to something I had heard before—often, and when I was least expecting it, from some familiar religious doctrine.

I wasn’t looking for this result. I didn’t begin by listing the spiritual doctrines, as we do the laws of Nature, and then proceed to try to match them. In fact, the majority of the doctrines of spirit seemed too far removed from the natural world even to suggest this. Nor did I begin with religious doctrines and work downward to find their relations in the natural realm. In fact, it was exactly the opposite process: I extended the natural law as far as it would go, with the appropriate spiritual doctrine rarely appearing relevant till I had gone as far as I could, at which point it suddenly became clear that there was an application.

When that happened, I really didn’t know whether I was more thankful that Nature was so much like spiritual revelation, or more awed that revelation was so like scientific observation of Nature. It came as a surprise to me that our inherited theology, with all the old-fashioned language that has gathered around it, should be so faithful a description of what we call “the truth as it is in Nature.”

Science and Faith

We all recognize that educated young people find it hard to accept or retain the forms of religion they grew up with, and this is especially true of those trained in the sciences. The reason is clear: no one can study science without questioning the ideas that they were told were true when they were children.
Only those who’ve been through it can appreciate the radical change that the practice of science makes in a student’s mental framework. Having learned to use it, the integrity of the scientific method claims our loyalty so fully that all other ways of seeking truth seem comparatively unstable. This is because, when we observe the natural world as scientists, we focus on measurable things among fixed laws. Before we studied the sciences, we didn’t know that any form of truth could feel so stable. As a result, we now find all other approaches to discovering truth unacceptable. For most of us, this change happens in spite of ourselves; we struggle against it, yet, to our alarm, find that we’re drifting into what philosophers call “pure positivism” — a total reliance on the senses for knowledge. This is the inevitable result of scientific training.

Still, it’s not possible for science to undermine a faith that’s based on understanding rather than a blind adherence to the voices of authority from our childhood. No truth of Nature can successfully oppose any spiritual truth that has been personally discovered and logically supported.

Science cannot overthrow that kind of faith, but its study inevitably shakes it. Scientific doctrines, based as they are on observations of Nature, are so certain that the truths most people were taught in churches and temples seem strangely ungrounded. The difficulty that the scientifically minded have with spirituality is therefore real and inevitable, and their doubt is entitled to respect. What most of them really long for is a spirituality that is as intellectually rigorous and satisfying as the sciences. The great physicist Albert Einstein said it well: “Science without religion is blind; religion without science is lame.”

While the process of questioning past beliefs and ultimately finding a new spiritual resolution may be inevitable, it’s by no means easy, for the scientist must fight the tendency to accept doctrine as truth every step of the way. This means that the one hope for a scientist’s spiritual life is more science. To quote Sir Francis Bacon, the man who virtually invented the scientific method in the late sixteenth century:

This I dare affirm in knowledge of Nature, that a little natural philosophy, and the first entrance into it, doth dispose the opinion to atheism; but, on the other side, much natural philosophy, and wading deep into it, will bring about men’s minds to spirituality.

No one who knows the splendor of scientific achievement or cares for it, no one who feels the solidity of its method or works with it, can remain neutral with regard to spirituality. On the other hand, no one who knows the peace of mind to be found in the religious traditions or feels the very human need of a spiritual life can stand idly by while the intellectuals of our age slowly divorce themselves from it.

A Possible Resolution

It’s not enough to say that there’s no controversy between spirituality and science. What’s needed now is to draw science and spirituality together again, as they once were understood—hand in hand, leading humanity to a higher way of life and greater experience of possibility. And we can only do so by demonstrating the supreme naturalness of the supernatural. We must either extend the scientific method into spirituality, or eliminate spirituality completely—and in our heart of hearts we know that elimination would be intolerable. To quote Albert Einstein again, “Science can only be created by those who are thoroughly imbued with the aspiration toward truth and understanding. This source of feeling, however, springs from the sphere of religion.”

The first step, therefore, is not to reconcile science and spirituality—as so many have tried and failed—instead it is to demonstrate the natural laws of science working in spiritual experience. Then, and not till then, will people see that, to be loyal to the whole of Nature, we must also be loyal to the part of the whole that is defined as spiritual. Then we’ll see that the contribution of science to spirituality is the demonstration of the supreme naturalness of what’s been called the supernatural, and the gift of spirituality to science is the demonstration of the “supernaturalness” of the natural. In this way, our experience of the supernatural slowly becomes natural and the natural slowly becomes supernatural.

Essential Points

• When science is either pitted against spirituality or fused with it, most authors are basing their argument on some fatal assumption about the scope and province of both.
• The application of biology to politics, economics, and sociology has revolutionized those sciences and led to the emergence of other fruitful disciplines.
• No one can study science without questioning what they were told was true when they were children.
• It’s not possible for science to overthrow a faith based on understanding. No truth of Nature can successfully oppose any single spiritual truth that is personally discovered and logically supported.
• What’s needed now is to draw science and spirituality together again, as they once were understood—hand in hand, leading humanity to a higher way of life and grander experience of possibility.
• The first step is not to reconcile science and spirituality, but to demonstrate the natural laws of science working in spiritual experience.

Exercises
Religion, as Drummond suggested, encourages us to see the world through the eyes of the authorities who teach us, while science encourages us to make personal observations and test what we observe. Attempting to maintain both approaches to knowledge can lead to what psychologists call “cognitive dissonance,” which causes internal conflict and may lead to an unwillingness to go forward with either. But Drummond found a way. He was a devout Christian, a teacher and supporter of Christian missions all over the world, who worked through the problems of evolution and an expanding universe to find an understanding that was compatible with his religious beliefs. He did so by learning as much as he could about both his religion and science—and each of us can benefit from doing the same, no matter what our religious beliefs have been.

You can start to do so with the following exercises. Start a Science and Spirituality notebook and write your responses to the following:

1. Think back to the first time you realized that what you were learning in school was different from what you were being told in church, synagogue, mosque, or temple. How did you feel then? What did you do about it? Did you throw both ideas out? Try to reconcile them? Choose one over the other? How did you feel about what you did? Where are you now in that process? You might find reading a book like J. C. Pedigo’s Views from the Pew: Moving Beyond Religion, Discovering Truth Within to be helpful if you’re having difficulties with this process.

2. Watch a science documentary on television or the Internet, get a copy of What the Bleep Do We Know!? or read a popular book about the new biology, like Bruce Lipton’s The Biology of Belief, or about physics, like Danah Zohar’s The Quantum Self or Amit Goswami’s Physics of the Soul. Compare what they’re saying to what your religious beliefs have been. If you’ve taken the Creation description in your religion literally, how does this material support it? Contradict it? Can you find a way to merge them? If your idea of God is a per- son sitting on a throne somewhere above the earth, how do the photographs of far-off galaxies relate to that idea? Is it possible that both are true? How? If you’ve discarded the idea of God, how do these ideas suggest that there may be a way to define divinity that makes sense to you?